February 26 Incident 26 February, 2007

One of my colleagues at work is responsible for collecting newspaper articles about certain topics and distributing them to the rest of the staff every day. Rather than just sending the articles along, she always includes some information about what is special about the day. I just love getting her emails and then asking my other colleagues about the meaning. It’s a great conversation starter.

Today, her email informed me that it is the day of the “February 26 Incident”. Apparently, there was an attempted coup d’etat in Japan on this day in 1936, which caused martial law to be instated (and not revoked until July 18 of that year). A number of officials were killed, including the Finance Minister. It was a tricky situation because the military did not want to fight against the insurgents (who were also members of the military).

At least, that is what Wikipedia tells me about the event. A little history tidbit for your reading pleasure today.

One Comment

oops, when the website got moved to the new layout, my comment got erased… i said that i found this blog randomly on my keitai (and must say it looks even nicer in the new software on my keitai) and i really enjoyed the read, i think my phrase was something like “brought some sunshine to my boring commute” thanks for the cool blog, keep it up! PS. sorry, I’m not in tsukuba, I’m over closer to tokyo, so cant blogroll me, but no big deal.